THE- AR T GALLE-RIE-S p.iftlt A venlle's New Mttseltm T HANKS and rebellion contended for a place in my heart as I went through the newly opened Frick lTIUSeUm, and I am afraid that my baser feelings have won out. For the mo- ment, I should like to look our new gift horse impolitely in the mouth, and not merely bite the hand that feeds us but take a nip or two at the ankles for good measure. You must really visit the museum to see how effectually the directors have frustrated their obviously good inten- tions. Very wisely indeed, they de- cided to require applications for ad- mission, in order to space attendance through the day. Since most American museums confuse education with mass attendance, this is a welcome depar- ture, and I trust all small, overvisited museums will copy it. Unfortunately, this admirable provision was nullified by roping off the galleries in order to en- force one-way passage through the build- ing. The result is to have all the evils of congestion without a colorable excuse for it; in action, the museum is an ele- gant counterpart of the Times Square subway station at six in the evening. Crazy is the mildest word I can find to describe these regulations. They would be entirely appropriate if the sole object of the museum were to permit the maximum number of people to file respectfully past the mummy of the de- ceased steel manufacturer who gath- ered the collection together and once lived, in the fashion of his time, in this Renaissance palace. No doubt the bar- riers protect the carved chests, the Renaissance chairs, and the sculptural bric-a-brac from the prying hands of the curious, but unfortunately they com- pletely sacrifice the paintings to these very minor works of art. The lover of paintings cannot see the bigger pictures without becoming walleyed, and the very essence of aesthetic communion -which involves the singling out of a picture, and its un em barrassed contem- plation from various distances or angles -is lost. Indeed, one of the finest paint- ings in the whole collection, Giovanni Bellini's "St. Francis in Ecstasy," can be seen only from a forty-five-degree angle. Precious little opportunity for en- joyment, or even effectual observation, lies in the present arrangement. And it is really too bad, for the Frick col- lection of paintíngs shows the influ- ence of good, if conventional, judgment, and it boasts a generous handful of paintings of decidedly major magni- tude. To my thinking, there is too much Romney and Gainsborough, and for the purpose of interior decoration Boucher and Fragonard were taken over whole- sale. Above all, there is too much \Vhistler. (But "The Ocean" is surely one of his finest paintings; and if you have a liking for Proust, you'll be inter- ested in his portrait of Comte Robert de Montesquiou, who was the original of the Baron de Charlus.) On the other hand, the Van Dyck portraits, particularly those of Frans and Mar- gareta Snyders, are magnificent; the Veroneses are very good; Rembrandt's "The Polish Rider" is one of the best examples of his work in America; Goya's "The Forge" is top-notch, and the Limoges enamels are all that rumor ever said they were: a marvellous fu- sion of art and technical skill. So much for one's first hasty and badly handi- capped impression. Mischief like the misconceived ad- ministrative regulations can easily be repaired, even if this involves putting the bric-a-brac down in the cellar. But w hat shall one say of the general scheme of converting a private mansion into a.::. ". public museum, and making the new gal- leries conform, in their general design and fulsome decorative background, to the rest of the house? The latter step, it seems to me, merely doubled the original error. A historical collection of paintings represents fifty different modes of life and physical settings; and the best background for the paintings and sculpture of the past is no back- ground at all-the bare walls of a mod- ern building, such as Barnard provided in the original Cloisters. While the scale of the Frick museum is fine, the decorative scheme-except in the Fragonard and Boucher rooms, where the rooms themselves are the frame- is a nuisance. The paintings are lost in the background. That may have sat- isfied the taste of Renaissance princes, or even that of American millionaires during the first part of the present century) but it no longer meets today's standard of presentation. J ACQUES LIPCHITZ, whose sculpture has been given a handsome setting at the Brummer Gallery, is one of the .. 49 ANN l : :t ,Ú .^ THE PREFERENCE OF:.::. i:' ,/ ,:: " THOSE WHO KNOW '" :'. "H.'H'.. H ::: .. . .f.: : r": :,:" < , ': , :, , :,,::.:::,: /f . P . ' . :,, , :' . . . , ' : , . : r . ;!::l?41i :J,* .' . 4' .. .. . ' ' ';t. Jr 'W '''' ,) ßh ' "",, , .' ":,:':"'... ij ."" :;:-y:' ,,,è -.':' .: ....::... :;.: t :,.-:::&- : f:f -::: .:t.'"< . ::fiF /: ë .... ::: , "". ..:::.:. :::.::t:... . ::V('. . -.::.:-:':.., ... " . ;::;! t ;;::::;j:{': . ..TJr: .,'":'i': ifj:lf ../'i ð/:;:J; .: ! { t'88. ^ ^ . . "':'::: :.:..:.'< .... '. . . '::"<;,:,.:\:-'{, :,,;:',.i\,:::.u ::,ë'::;J:' : <:" ; ... - - .......: . ;( '" ; ''':'' :.: c. :\ :: ' , \ - .--::: ... " '::::'t:' of! , ,:,,?:< :::: - ,:) ill... {(-::- " ',_ .::;'X. ..:....:.: -:..j. , , . ..:',':'::>1> .:::'::::1t: .. :-'-':-".. . .':' '::::. ,'..........,:-. /');' WITH SEA FOOD AT HOTEL PLAZA HOTEL RITZ-CARLTON THE 21 CLUB BY THE BOTTLE OR CASE AT MONRO WINE & LIQUEUR CO., 2 East 57 Street KRESSMANN BORDEAUX Distributor M. A. Gants Co./ Inc.